Bubble Tea / Tea Bubbles

 

 

 

If you have never had a Taiwanese style bubble tea your missing out. If you have never had a Cantonese milk tea or "lai cha" you are also missing out. Put the two together and it's like as Eric Burger would say "oralgasmic".

When I first came to Hong Kong and tried these oral delights it was a magical moment. I was in love and am still in love with these tasty beverages. Hot or cold, topped with a spoonful of wheat germ it is just fantastic. Sucking on a fat straw with the pearl sago shooting into your head, you just cant help but smiling.

My first job in Hong Kong at the Excelsior was my first time making a Cantonese Milk Tea dessert for Tott's restaurant. It was a good dessert. It was composed of milk tea foam made from black tea and evaporated milk, tea sponge, vanilla ice cream, chocolate tuile tube, chocolate cream and a praline feuilletine crisp. When coming up with new items for our dessert menu my assistant pastry chef for Cucina, Rachel ( who had worked with me at the Excelsior and whom I stole ) mentioned we should do the milk tea dessert again. I was happy to get a helpful suggestion and I was off to the drawing board.

 

milk tea 2006

 

I did not want to do the same dessert, and wanted to make it more basic, no chocolate, keep it more like a milk tea should be but in a modern western dessert form. It took shape in my mind pretty fast but needed quite a few trials to get the final result.

The first task was to learn how to cook a proper pearl sago. After researching I found a great website full of information on how to make the perfect bubble tea from the brewing of the tea to the cooking of the sago.

 

Pearl Sago

1. use a ratio of 1:8, sago:water, or more water but never less
2. bring water to a boil, add sago (do not rinse or soak pearl sago)
3. simmer for 45 minutes
4. rinse in hot water
5. store in a warm syrup based mixture (i use a honey tea infusion)
6. stir often, keep at room temperature and do not regrigerate
7. do not keep too long, need to be used withing apx 6 hours.
8. they will get hard in the center after a while, cannot prevent this, needs to be made fresh

 

 

The sago pearls were set, next was the tea element. You have to use the traditional and best tea for the Cantonese milk tea, just like in the cha chaan tangs in Hong Kong. I used Lipton, there are others but this is considered one of the best. The tea infusion was made by cooking the tea in boiling water for 8 minutes, then let rest in water for 5 minutes before straining. You should use panty hose to strain the tea.

I would have liked to use my superbag instead but it never was shipped to me with the rest of my order from Le Sanctuaire. I paid for it, it was on the invoice but never came. They also have not replied to my problem. Not happy about this at all, bad bad bad. Original invoice also had the methocel I ordered, but when received the invoice had changed, no methocel and no notice either.

Any way, on to happy and magical things...

 

 

 

 

Now that's really bubble tea! There are various methods out there to make these. One from the texturas 84 DVD uses egg white powder, egg white, xantana and cream to make the bubbles. For me this was the worst result. Next, a modified a recipe from Andoni Luis Aduriz from Mugaritz for chocolate bubbles. The bubbles were stabilized by egg white powder, chocolate powder and xantana. Without the chocolate I did not get the result and I wanted, good but not perfect. It was on to the next method that I got from chadzilla using sucro, honey and water. I had not used sucro before, had it but never really knew what to do with it. I did not want the flavor of honey so I was on to make my own concoction. Not too long and I came up with a really stable and easy mix. The bubbles are super strong and last long enough to get from the kitchen to the guest without dissolving. Different proportions of the stabilizers will give you different size bubbles. I will never use a hand blender to create airs again after discovering the magic of an aquarium oxygen pump that I paid 100HKD for.

The next component is the evaporated milk. Espuma from black and white evaporated milk. You know a good place for milk tea in HK when the windows or shelves are stacked high with the black cow cans!

 

                                               

 

The original version of this dessert had a tea sponge where the tea was baked into the sponge. This provided a nice texture and flavor, but needed improvement. I took a standard financier recipe, modified it with baking powder, lemon zest and english breakfast tea and bamn, it was perfect. The english breakfast tea from twinnings was perfect as the tea leaves are small and crunchy providing a really nice taste and texture to the financier.

At this point I had the milk element, the tea element, 2 bubble elements, the wheat germ element( my malted soy ice cream) and it should be complete. But it just wasn't there. I wanted to the flavours original and basic but it needed one more element. A crispy element, but what? I pondered for several days until it came to me.. peach meringue. Peach and tea like each other, would not be overpowering and with the egg white powder meringue method it would not be too sweet. There it was, I used freeze dried peach to make the meringue and it was complete, at least for this years version.

 

                                   

                                                             milk tea 2009

                                                        Download Tea bubbles

Comments

[dale]

hi ryan. just tried using the pump for the first time. i used the vanilla bubbles from natura, have you tried this? very cool bubbles, but not very stable

[Vi]

I absolutely agree with you that people are missing out if they have not give the bubble tea or lai chai a try - best drink ever!

As for your creation, I would have never thought of making a dessert out of them! Your work almost has an air of inspiration to it! Thank you for expanding my horizon!

[ryan zimmer]

Go to your nearest pet store or aquariums and fish specialist and you should be able to find a good selection of tubes and other cool gadgets for making bubbles! Or if have a fresh seafood supplier they proabably know where to find aquarium supplies. Im lucky, in Hong Kong there is an entire street lined with these shops.
As for the meringue powder, it for sure helps stabilize but the key stabiization ingredient is the xanthan gum. Too much can create problems though. Also, I found that keeping the mix at room temperature or around 26-28C makes for good bubbles.
If you can substitute chocolate for cocoa powder then go gor it, I personally hate cocoa powder flavor and always look for a way to do with out.
It always seems to take me a million trys to get these things to work, never happens on the first! You can probably get good results without one powder or the other. Also the liquid you are making bubbles out of will play a big part.

[Y]

Thanks Ryan! I think more egg white powder helps stabilise it as well though..? Or maybe reduce egg white powder, and sub with a bit of sucro. I also suspected that tube size would make a difference and suggested that, but was told that the tubes we got are the only size available (and they're quite narrow unfortunately). I have a copy of the Aduriz recipe. It's similar to what we're currently using, except we also incorporate dark chocolate into the mixture (more flavour than just cocoa?).

[ryan zimmer]

Y,
I found less egg white powder produced bigger bubbles. Also the size of the tube from the oxygen pump will give you different sizes. Bigger tube = bigger bubbles.
I found that the addition of sucro helped stabilize the bubbles, not sure if it actually helped with the size. Keep trying! Also try the recipe for chocolate bubbles form Andoni Aduriz on starchefs, it was perfect when I tried it!It is linked in this post.
Good luck =)
Ryan

[ryan zimmer]

Thanks Craig for your support! Hope I can keep you interested.
Cheers!
Ryan

[Y]

What an interesting post! Have been trying to make chocolate bubbles at work, using the egg white/xanthan method, but haven't managed to get really big bubbles. I'm wondering if we should be using sucro instead.

[Craig]

Hi Ryan,
I just wanted to comment that i love your blog. I am not a pastry chef, but find your posts extremely interesting. You have a fantastic design element on your plates and the passion is evident.
Pleasure to read.